The Wedding Night Affair--An Historical Mystery, page 6
Sobs wrenched her throat, painful and choking. She emptied herself of the horror of the last week, and the rest of it, ever since she had been informed who her husband must be. Even before she knew the depths of his brutality, Juliana had known she had a hard length to hoe.
The murder was the culmination of a danse macabre that had taken hold of her for the last two months. Her life had been turned upside down. She was trapped, never more than now, never allowed to do as she pleased. She had no allies, no true friends, since her father deemed her too grand for any, too important to risk in childish games or girlish chatter.
Fear clutched her throat when she could not control her reaction, the breath sawing in and out of her.
Sir Edmund waited for however long it lasted, never encroaching, offering silent comfort.
He settled by her side, the action made easier because she took up less space than usual without the wide hoops. Slowly she recovered her equilibrium and turned to him. She must look a complete mess, but he did not appear perturbed. Handing her another large linen handkerchief, he waited until she had mopped up the tears and blown her nose.
“I wondered when it would come,” he said. “Nobody can go through the ordeal you have suffered without reacting to it. You must not hold these emotions in, my lady. It is not good for you.”
Why should he care what was good for her? Why should she, with the shadow of the gallows casting her into darkness?
“Let me tell you my opinion as I have formed it so far: You have no recollection of the event, none at all. You would surely recall something. I have observed you closely, and I saw no falsehoods in what you told me.”
She drew a shaky breath. “Sir, you are talking about my life. Please, I beg you don’t keep me in the dark. It cannot be worse than what I have been imagining.”
He gazed at her hand. Picking it up so the lace ruffles at her elbows fell back, he coolly examined the marks, the broken nails. Juliana forced herself not to flinch, but her muscles stiffened with the effort. Then he turned her arm around and studied the underside of her wrist. “Did he do this?”
She nodded. He let loose a foul word under his breath. “Are there any more marks?”
She nodded.
He released her and she laid her hand on her lap. “I do not want to give you false expectations,” he said.
“Tell me.” She injected command into her voice, the one that usually made servants jump to obey.
It did not have that effect on him. “How did you feel when you awoke?”
She recalled that part vividly. “Confused, still tired, strange. My throat was dry. I had a headache, but that was nothing compared to my other hurts. Not myself.” But she was not, was she? “I did not move at first, considered slipping out of bed before he could hurt me again, and then when I did...” She let the sentence trail off but the vision of that knife embedded in her husband’s chest would invade her dreams, living and waking, as long as she lived.
He sprang to his feet. “We have little time to waste.”
“We?”
He turned at the door and gave her a brisk nod. “Yes, we.”
She had found an ally. She’d never had one of those before.
He stood and bowed, a brief, polite obeisance, nothing more. “I will leave you now. I have work to do. I will speak to Mr. Fielding on the advisability of leaving you here under your father’s cognizance, rather than taking you to his house.”
Yes, she would be better here. She supposed, at least. “Thank you.”
He left the room as quickly as he’d entered and with as little fuss.
* * *
Juliana bathed her face. The cold water in her washstand cooled her hot cheeks and soothed her eyes, which were now as sore as the rest of her body. She dared not imagine she could escape from this mess, although Sir Edmund had given her pause for thought. Even if she was convicted of killing Godfrey, she might not die for it.
The noises from outside had increased while she had been speaking to Sir Edmund. Even though her room faced the back of the house, the sound was clear, as it should not be. There must have been more than fifty people outside by now, perhaps twice as many.
A crash from downstairs made her spin around, sending her stomach churning, followed by the sound of glass shattering. Before she had time to process what was happening, the shouts grew louder. “Where is the witch?” and cries of “Murderess!” rent the air.
They were in the house, coming up the stairs.
Would it be better to let the mob tear her to pieces? Would it hurt more than hanging, or what her husband had done to her last night? The lifeline Sir Edmund had given her was slender indeed. It might only prolong her agony, give her another few months of life and nothing else.
When the jib door burst open, she thought her end had come, but instead Sir Edmund Ashendon hurtled in, dragging her maid behind him. “Get your clothes off, both of you,” he snapped, then turned to Juliana. “I’m taking you out of here, my lady. The mob can smell blood and you are no longer safe here. But if you walk out with a gown this fine, they will know you at once.”
While Wood gazed at him, openmouthed, Juliana understood immediately. She fumbled at the hooks and pins at the front of her gown, thanking her lucky stars she had not allowed her maid to array her in hoops and paint her face. She stripped the lace cap from her head—far too good for the likes of her, or the person she was about to become.
He spoke to the maid. “You will stay here with the other servants. Leave these things if you can find something else to wear. But her ladyship cannot leave this house in those clothes. They’ll be on her in a second.”
Reluctantly, her hands slow, Wood took off her jacket and plain linen fichu, then loosened the strings of her dark red skirt. It would be too short for Juliana, but perhaps, since maids kept their skirts short, that would serve.
In five minutes, her gown lay on the floor and she was climbing into the skirt, pulling the drawstring tight, then shrugging into the jacket and wrapping the fichu around her neck. “Shoes,” she demanded.
She forced them on her feet. Too small for her, but she could manage.
The crashes from below were getting closer. They must have stopped to smash the porcelain in her mother’s display cabinet downstairs. Her mother collected fine china, but she’d probably have to start again, judging from the sounds emerging up the stairs. They’d be here any minute.
She should have been concerned for her father, but she was not. He would survive. He always did.
Fear tingled her nerves, but urged her into action. Now she was faced with reality, she had no intention of ending her days at the mercy of a rabid mob. They would tear her to pieces. Before, when she had nothing to look forward to, when shock had rendered her indifferent, she had thought she did not care. But now she did.
Her father bellowed over the crowd, ordering them to stop. A shot echoed through the hall. The crowd fell silent. Until the shouts began again, louder and closer than before.
Juliana gasped in shock, frozen by the sound of a gun inside the house.
Sir Edmund grabbed her maid by her arms and turned her to face him. “Tell them where we are, and I’ll ensure you suffer for it.”
He didn’t have to outline the punishment, which was as well since they didn’t have much time.
Wood had made no effort to put on Juliana’s clothes and stood there in her petticoats and stays, shock in her eyes.
Then he turned his attention to Juliana again. “The domestics have barricaded themselves into the kitchen area and up in the attics, or so your father’s footman told me. That gives us a chance. The mob will loot and destroy what they find. There’s our other chance. Are you willing to come with me?”
Vigorously, Juliana nodded. Anywhere, so long as she left this house.
When Sir Edmund grabbed her elbow, she did not object, but he forced a shocked gasp from her when he ripped her lace ruffles away from her shift. He was right. No maid would wear lace as fine and as expensive as this. Something bumped against her thigh. She looked down and saw the bulge in his coat pocket. He had at least one pistol. “Did you have a weapon when you arrived here?”
He shook his head. “They’re your father’s best dueling pistols. Fortunately, he had loaded them. I will not use them unless it becomes strictly necessary.”
His coat of dark blue wool was not too fine to draw attention to himself. Very nicely calculated, as if he’d expected to encounter a mob. Its might could destroy whole districts. People could be roused at the least little thing. They were out for blood, and the notion chilled hers.
Before Juliana could let her imagination freeze her into insensibility, Sir Edmund looped his fingers loosely around her wrist and tugged her to the jib door. “Go upstairs to the servants’ quarters,” he told the maid.
At least Wood had wrapped herself in Juliana’s discarded gown, although without its hoops it dragged on the floor.
Willingly Juliana ran through the door with him, and heard it slam behind them. The light here was limited to windows set high up, dimmer than in the family part of the house. Wood headed up, in the direction of the servants’ quarters, but Sir Edmund pulled Juliana down the narrow wooden stairs. The steps were covered with a rough drugget, so that the steps of the servants would not disturb the family, but there was no need for its muffling effect now.
The cries and bloodthirsty yells from the main part of the house tightened her throat. Juliana had to force herself to breathe. Just beyond those walls people were rampaging through her home, destroying or looting everything they encountered. A hundred or more people speaking with a single voice, one purpose in mind. To mete out the rough justice of the mob.
The door at the bottom of the stairs gave way when Sir Edmund shoved it open, his shoulder slamming against the wood. The kitchen was full of servants. She guessed as many as possible had made it down here. They stared at them, openmouthed when they recognized her. A few women shrieked when they saw her. One had the sense to hand her a plain white linen cap. Juliana tied it on. She would look even more like a servant now. A straw hat hung on a hook nearby. She took it and tied it over the cap.
A strange calm descended on her. Although inside she was fighting nausea, a sense of finally doing something for herself had taken hold of her mind, and she was glad. She could fight back.
“This way.” Catching his sleeve, she pulled him to the narrow side door that few people used. Most considered it a blind door, a locked opening leading nowhere. But Juliana knew better. As a child, she had sometimes hidden in the narrow passage beyond after she’d committed a transgression, away from her father’s wrath and her mother’s indifference. She pulled him through.
“Oh, magnificent!” he cried, when he saw where she had taken him. Brick walls loomed high either side of them, a crack of daylight showing above. The passage must have been created when the buildings had gone up. These houses, while luxurious, were built quickly twenty years before, when the big aristocratic London mansions were torn down and these squares created. People moved in at one end of a square while houses were still going up at the other end. These narrow spaces meant more discreet access for workmen.
They collected some of the dirt that bedaubed the walls. All the better to disguise them once they got out of there. Soot got everywhere in this city, creating a nasty, greasy black stain that was difficult to remove. Juliana crept along the passage, more a gap between two buildings than any purpose-built entrance, but it was enough. She stumbled a few times, but they pushed and squirmed their way through.
They emerged much the worse for wear by the side of the house next door, dirt and soot smearing their clothes. The street was crowded with people. A few peered at them curiously.
Juliana froze, staring back. They would recognize her. Surely they could not escape.
Sir Edmund slung his arm around her waist and drew her close. She shuddered at the contact, but he ignored it. From his capacious pocket, he pulled a bottle of brandy, her father’s best cognac. “Look what I found!”
The last thing she would have done would be to draw attention to herself, but he didn’t hesitate. A large bully in a bilious green waistcoat snatched the prize from him. “You don’t ’ave it now!”
Sir Edmund let loose a particularly fruity curse, but although he made an obscene gesture at the man, he made no attempt to grab the bottle back. The bully laughed. With an expertise that spoke of long practice, he tapped the sealed bottle against the wall, knocking off the top. Tipping back his head, he poured the amber liquid into his mouth, until someone else grabbed the bottle from him.
A small crowd gathered around, jostling to grab the prize from his greedy hands. They formed a barrier between them and the rest of the crowd, creating enough space for Sir Edmund and Juliana to slip back. At first, he stayed still, one hand around the railing to keep them steady against the surge of bodies, but as the brandy bottle attracted more attention than they did, they could slide back.
A fresh surge of people teemed past, pushing, jostling, shoving Juliana and Sir Edmund against the rails, nearly forcing them into the area below. Servants were racing out of the other houses in the street, heading for the mob, cudgels in hand, no doubt in an attempt to disperse them. A brawl erupted where the bunch of people with the brandy was. The bottle would be empty by now, and not everyone got a taste of it.
A window smashed, shards of glass showering on the crowd below. Juliana winced.
Steadily, Sir Edmund drew her back. They were two houses away now. Two more and they’d be at the end of the street. He kept a firm hold on her, over the long sleeve of the jacket, taking care not to bruise, although in these circumstances, she wouldn’t have minded.
The sheer mass of stinking humanity was overwhelming her resolve. She did not know how much longer she could stay on her feet, struggling back as people ran forward. The noise deafened her, the stink choked her, but still, she continued. Guided by Sir Edmund, she pushed back; encouraged by his murmured praise, she persevered.
They reached the corner. More people were coming, while cab drivers and others were heading just as determinedly in the other direction, bent on escaping from this deadly battle raging in Hanover Street. The cacophony of horses’ hooves added to the shouts and crashes, as property was destroyed. Liveried footmen appeared out of nearby houses, armed with pistols, swords and even a hammer or two.
And yet the journals would most likely dismiss this as a fracas or a disturbance unless the violence spread to other streets. In which case, it would be gleefully reported as another example of the mob rule threatening to overcome the orderly conduct of respectable citizens.
Or some such nonsense.
Gleeful giggles bubbled up inside Juliana, startling her when they burst free. After a glance at her, Sir Edmund released her, but kept hold of her hand. “Keep going,” he said, as they continued to walk briskly away from everything she had known, and toward a new future.
After today, nothing would ever be the same.
They turned the corner, and he hailed a cab. To her shock, it stopped long enough for them to scramble in.
Grateful for the rescue, even if it was in a cramped vehicle with cracked leather seats reeking of unwashed humanity, Juliana closed her eyes and let out one long sigh of relief. “Thank you,” she said. She could never remember being so grateful to anyone.
“You’re welcome,” he answered dryly. He rapped on the top of the carriage with one fist and yelled, “Bow Street!”
The cab driver rapped back, as a signal that he understood.
“I’ve never been in one of these before today,” she confessed.
He turned a fascinated gaze on to her. “Never?”
She shook her head. “My parents would not allow it. Below our notice, they said.”
He snorted. “How the rich live. They have their own little world, floating above the rest of us.”
He opened his hand and stared at a small, silver-colored pin, such as the kind that fastened a neck cloth. The workmanship was crude, so it had not come from her house, unless it belonged to a servant. “What is that?”
“I took it from the man I gave the brandy to. A fair exchange, I think.”
He pocketed the item. She had no idea what it meant to him, but obviously it meant something.
When she recalled what he’d actually said before their escape, her heart sank once more. “I am to be locked up at Bow Street?”
“We shall see,” he said shortly. “Remember, I said I would make you no promises. But you will not be thrown into Newgate with the rest of the prisoners. You have people to vouch for you, so you will be released into the cognizance of someone. Probably your father.”
“No,” she breathed, then repeated it louder. “No.”
“Then where?” he demanded, turning to face her.
Their knees collided, and she flinched away, unused to such intimate touches.
“Do you have any relatives you can stay with?”
“If I did, I wouldn’t be in this mess. My father would not have married me off to Godfrey.” Or at least he might have given her more say in her choice of husband. She’d have had a cousin to inherit the estate, and the terrible burden would have been off her shoulders.
His mouth firmed. “I see. We will contrive something for you.”
Yes, she was a prisoner. “I did not kill Godfrey,” she affirmed, as much for her as for the man sitting next to her.
The cab lurched around a corner, throwing her into his arms. This time she let out a cry of pain.
He righted her. “I could not help noticing other marks as you dressed. Are you bruised all over?”
“Yes, and I have a few grazes.” She did not elaborate. She did not have to. Godfrey had inflicted every mark she carried, and there were many of them. Had she stayed and Godfrey lived, she did not doubt he would have inflicted more serious damage. When he’d slammed her against the wall, she’d thought he’d broken her arm.
